Santry River (formerly Skillings Glas) is a fairly small river on the north side of Dublin city, one of the forty or so watercourses monitored by Dublin City Council

Dublin City Council

Dublin City Council is the local authority for the city of Dublin in Ireland. It has 52 members and is the largest local authority in Ireland. Until 2001, it was known as Dublin Corporation.-Legal status:...

.

Course

The Santry rises at an elevation of c. 80m, in the semi-rural areas of Harristown and Dubber in the part of County Dublin

County Dublin

County Dublin is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Dublin Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the city of Dublin which is the capital of Ireland. County Dublin was one of the first of the parts of Ireland to be shired by King John of England following the...

 now administered by Fingal County Council

Fingal County Council

Fingal County council is the local authority for the county of Fingal in Ireland. It is one of three local authorities that comprised the former Dublin County Council before its abolition and one of four councils in the Dublin Region. The county seat is in Swords, with another major office...

, near the village of St. Margaret's and Dublin Airport

Dublin Airport

Dublin Airport, , is operated by the Dublin Airport Authority. Located in Collinstown, in the Fingal part of County Dublin, 18.4 million passengers passed through the airport in 2010, making it the busiest airport in the Republic of Ireland, followed by Cork and Shannon...

. The lead branch can be found at the end of a small lane in the former Harristown Demesne, now cut off by new road development. The river then flows along to the south of Dublin Airport (from which some tributary streams enter it), near the new Dublin Bus

Dublin Bus

Dublin Bus is a public transport operator in Ireland. It operates an extensive bus network of 172 radial, cross-city and peripheral routes and 18 night routes in the city of Dublin and the Greater Dublin Area. The company, established in 1987, is a subsidiary of Córas Iompair Éireann which is...

 Harristown depot. With the Dubber branch, it passes for most of its upper course out in the open, flowing through Sillogue Public Golf Course and then more of Ballymun

Ballymun

Ballymun is an area on Dublin's Northside close to Dublin Airport, Ireland. It is infamous for the Ballymun flats, which became a symbol of poverty, drugs, alienation from the state and social problems in Ireland from the 1970s...

; up to this point, the main channel is called Quinn's River.

The river then traverses Santry

Santry

Santry is a suburb on the Northside of Dublin, Ireland, bordering Coolock, Glasnevin and Ballymun. Today it straddles the boundary of Dublin City and Fingal County Council area....

, from which its main modern names comes, where it forms a major feature of the Santry Demesne, with small lakes within what is now the public park. In Coolock

Coolock

Coolock is a large suburban area, centred on a village, on Dublin city's Northside in Ireland. Coolock is crossed by the Santry River, a prominent feature in the middle of the district, with a linear park and ponds...

, the river forms a central feature in the valley which cuts through the district, and features ornamental ponds, running past the Stardust

Stardust Disaster

The Stardust fire was a fatal fire which took place at the Stardust nightclub in Artane, Dublin, Ireland in the early hours of 14 February 1981. Some 841 people had attended a disco there, of whom 48 died and 214 were injured as a result of the fire...

 Memorial Park, and through the grounds of Cadbury's Ireland, where there is an EPA monitoring station, and a tumulus on its banks.

The Santry then enters Raheny

Raheny

Raheny is a northern suburb of Dublin, the capital city of Ireland. It is an old area, centred around an old village, and is referenced back to 570 AD but after years of light settlement, with a main village and a coastal hamlet, grew rapidly in the 20th century, and is now a mid-density...

 near the beginning of Tonlegee Road, flowing alongside the Edenmore lands, past St. Joseph's Hospital

St. Joseph's Hospital, Dublin

St. Joseph's Hospital is a secondary hospital in Raheny, on the Northside of Dublin in Ireland. It was founded, as St. Joseph's Nursing Home, in Edenmore House, by a religious order, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Chambery, at the request of Archbishop McQuaid and under the supervision of the order's...

, then through the village centre, along the grounds of Manor House School, and then, with two areas of culverting, at the beginning and end of the former Bettyglen Estate, reaches the sea, where its mouth forms part of the eastern "lagoon" behind North Bull Island, and the flow enters Sutton Creek. The lower stretch of the river is occasionally noted as "Raheny River."

Drainage link from Naniken River

The dotted line on the above sketch is an artificial link made by Dublin Corporation between the Santry River and the Naniken River

Naniken River

The Naniken River is a minor river on the north side of Dublin city, Ireland, one of more than forty watercourses monitored by Dublin City Council...

, to reduce the flow of the latter and to allow handling of any flooding in either watercourse. It runs at the western end of Kilmore West in Coolock.

Studies

As part of the management of the river, the Santry is one of the third tier rivers being numerically mapped within the Greater Dublin Strategic Drainage Study, with floodplain hydraulics computed (the other rivers being the Carrickmines, Deansgrange, Poddle

River Poddle

The River Poddle , is one of the best known of the more than a hundred watercourses of Dublin. It is the source of the name "Dublin", the city being named after a pool that was once on its course...

, Camac

River Camac

The River Camac is one of the larger rivers in Dublin, Ireland, and was one of four tributaries of the Liffey critical to early development of the city.-Course:...

, Finglas and Mayne, along with one of the two second tier waterways, the Tolka

River Tolka

The River Tolka is one of Dublin's three main rivers, flowing from County Meath to Fingal, within the old County Dublin, and through the north of Dublin city, Ireland. It is one of Dublin's three main rivers, the others being the Liffey and the Dodder...

).

Incidents

The Santry has been noted for pollution incidents over the years, with industrial effluent and building material the most common causes (some of the latter once caused the main pond by the Stardust Memorial to be drained and reformed).